The Mysteries of Marcie Fleach:Chapter 5-Marcie Gras
by Sketchpad
Summary: Marcie and her father visits Gatorsburg for the annual Pageant of Gators, a three-day carnival celebrating the gators' commercial bounty for the town. But someone is going out of their way to sabotage the festivities. Marcie must find the party-pooper before the whole town gets skinned!
1. Chapter 1

_1~_

Condensation rolled off of the stalagmites on the high vaulted ceiling of the cave and dripped down into the cave's natural, pond-sized pool, disturbing its surface slightly. It went unnoticed by the men below, who worked in and around the pool, which was surrounded by a strong fence for their protection and for ease of their particular work.

Muscular wranglers waded in the center of the pool, eyes alert and bodies tensed for any wayward movement under the water. The soft surface waves of curious motion that could suddenly lead to a deadly strike. These men were the highest paid by the company that owned these particular caves, the risks that took demand such payment, for these men, culled from some of the toughest areas of the Deep South, wrestled alligators for a living.

In the chamber's other surrounding, fenced-in pools, it was the same. Wranglers standing in the center of their pools, waiting.

However, activity was still happening while they waited. Men and women in water-proof jumpsuits and heavy gloves worked around railed loading areas set up near the fences' openings that led into the water.

Once the wranglers subdued the alligators with heavy tranquilizer darts, these "miners" then tagged the gators by which pool they were caught and then loaded onto mine car trains to be brought out for further processing.

In one of the pools, a ripple was seen, and the wranglers were set. Coordination with each other and the shooter was critical. Too many workers lost limbs to show for their hard work, or sadly left loved ones behind as they were dragged down and death-rolled into manageable chunks.

Slitted eyes and flared nostrils quietly broke the surface of the pool. The gator was cautious but curious. So many men to choose from, but numbers also meant security. They could hurt it if they worked together, somehow.

It submerged and thought of its options, then came up with one that its reptilian brain would agree with. Scanning the water, it judged the distance of the men and noticed the legs of one that stood further out than the others. The further in water one was, the deeper into the gator's territory one was, and deep water was the reptile's kingdom.

On top of that, it could smell something in the depths near the standing man, an aroma of dead animal that drew the alligator closer, almost in striking range. Whatever that man was exposed to, it may very well spell the end of him, if he wasn't aware.

The gator's snout took one more whiff of the carcass scent near the man's pant leg, and then he struck, hard, twisting its head to take a herculean bite from its victim and yank him off-balance into the water.

The man made no sound as he was pulled down, so sudden was the attack. The other wranglers, however, didn't move in to pulled him back out, they simply spread out, each holding a section of a wide net into a rough perimeter behind the gator, with the shooter moving forward into position.

It didn't take them long to see what they were waiting for. The infamous death-roll.

Since all crocodilians can't chew their food, they had come up with an ingenious way to make devouring prey easier over the eons of their evolutionary development. By biting a section of the body and then rolling with that chunk of flesh and bone at high speed, they could effectively rip pieces off and eat them at their leisure. Such was the fate of the fallen wrangler.

The shooter quickly lined up her shot, seeing down the sight of her air rifle, and keeping her nerves, eyes and hands steady. She would only get one clear shot at this.

The gator, in the midst of his rolling, met with some resistance from its prey, and momentarily stopped spinning at the worst possible moment, which was when the shooter finally saw her target, the softer, whitish belly of the beast, exposed for all to see.

With a controlled trigger squeeze, the dart was launched into the unarmored stomach, which made the alligator release its food in pain, and splash in confusion.

That was the wranglers' cue. They all cast their wide net over the reptile, allowing its frantic movements of muscular tail, foot and body to help entangle it.

The shooter loaded another dart into the rifle and lined up another shot. The dart's needles were rated to penetrate even the natural armor of an American alligator, but glancing blows during a capture had been known to occur, so she learned to be cautious.

Her finger slipped around the sensitive trigger, ready to pull the fractional ounce of pressure needed to launch another dart, but it soon proved unnecessary.

The hissing gator's tail whips and open-mouth aggression became noticeably slower, its swimming and splashing, more sedate. So much so, that the wranglers, as if of one, practiced mind, decided that it was safe enough to capture, carefully grabbed the ends of the net, and hauled the animal to the loading area, where miners who were watching the scene, waited.

As for the stricken worker whose leg was nearly ripped apart by the alligator, he floated up to the surface of the water. Aside from shredded trousers, there wasn't a drop of arterial blood in the pool. In fact, under closer observation, it could be safely said that the worker wasn't even human.

"Good placement of the bait dummy, guys," the lead wrangler said to his team. "He didn't know what hit 'im."

Two miners hauled the animal over to a prep table and worked over the captured beast, one tightly securing its mouth closed with electrical tape, and the other pinning a tag, with the number of that pool, number three, into one of the plates on its back. Once that was done, they both heaved and dropped the gator into a waiting mine car that was already filled with other comatose alligators pulled from the body of water, their great tails hanging impotently out of the car.

"Okay, Lou, take 'em out," called out Miner #1 to the mine car engineer, who started his engine and hauled the small train of mine cars out of the pool chamber and towards the mine's exit. After he wiped the prep table clean of water and gator essence, he spoke to his friend, Miner #2.

"Can't wait 'til quittin' time," he told him. "Gotta get my costume ready for the Pageant. This year, I'm going for a really cool look this year. I'm going as Pretre du Marais."

Miner #2 scoffed. "That ol' storybook character? Good luck getting any of the girls to talk to you looking like that."

"Hey! I'm appealing to the ladies' inner need for security with this," Miner #1 explained, cockily. "It's like takin' a trip through the tunnel of love. They love to be scared so they can have somebody to cling to. Basic Love Psychology."

So focused were they on their conversation, neither of them noticed the mine's foreman marching up behind the two of them, after overhearing them.

"Hey, you two!" he barked. "How about a trip through the tunnel of _gators_, instead! The boss is really crackin' down on low productivity. We've gotta make up our quota this quarter."

"Hey, boss," Miner #2 asked, jovially. "If four quarters make a dollar, how much is four quotas?"

"I don't know, Miller," the foreman admitted. "Maybe you can call me from the unemployment office and tell me, ya knucklehead. Now, no more loafing!" Satisfied that he got his point across, the foreman stomped off, heading for the chamber exit.

Chaffing from the scolding, Miner #2 whispered to #1, "I'll show him loafing. I'll bet we'd get more gators outta this mine if we use better bait." He gave a meaningful glance at the foreman's general direction.

Miner #1, chuckling, said, "Now you know we have to have the highest quality gators coming out of here. What'll you think'll happen if we feed him to the gators...and the gators get sick?"

Both gave a well-needed laugh from that, and were seeing the wranglers and shooter head back out into the water again, when a voice was heard echoing across the stone walls of the cave.

"Good point," the voice said, which betrayed French origins with a soft sibilance. "We could always try you."

They stop laughing and then they, and indeed, every other worker looked around for the speaker. The cave's interior lighting flickered for a moment, and then someone resembling a shaman, quietly appeared from a green cloud bank of smoke that filled the mouth of the chamber.

The foreman, being the closest to the exit, gasped in sudden fright at the stranger's appearance, recovered, and then, angrily, walked up to engage the unexpected guest.

The visitor was chalk-white, thin, almost lanky, and dressed in what looked like the tattered, weather-beaten remnants of a Catholic priest's robes, held closed with a length of rope that supported a series of gourds. In one of his bony, dirty-nailed, claw-like hands, he brandished a long, moss-covered wooden staff, adorned with beadwork that held feathers, a coin, and a small rodent's skull.

Shuffling on barely held together sandals, the visitor walked further into the chamber as the foreman approached, but the foreman wouldn't know what this person thought of him via expression, because the guest's head and face was masked under a huge, weathered alligator skull that was ornamented from behind by a full plumage of red-tipped, white feathers.

The shaman regarded the irate man, seeing him through the alligator skull's eye sockets. However, to the foreman's discomfort, those sockets glowed with a verdant, intimidating light.

Nevertheless, the foreman stood his ground, staring hard into the glowing eyes. "Hey, you're not allowed in here. If you want to play dress up, wait until the pageant's in full swing and then knock yourself out. In the meantime, get outta here!"

Miner #1, not appreciating some joker interrupting their work time, especially one dressed as he was, chimed in. "You tell him, boss. Besides, he stole my costume idea."

The ragged intruder ignored the worker, but spoke loud enough so that everyone got the message.

"The insult zat iz your pageant and your crimes against ze noble gator will end soon enough, mes amis," the stranger hissed with malevolent promise. "In ze meantime, the Ghosts of Gators Past will educate you on ze folly of your ways!"

The man took one of the gourds from his rope belt and poured some soft, greenish powder in his pale hand, then, without preamble, he threw it into the foreman's face.

The foreman coughed quietly in the small cloud that was created, just as the powder formed a faint green mask on his face. A face that twisted in annoyance and anger.

"Oh, you like to throw things, huh?" the mine boss asked, balling up his work-worn fists. "Well, watch how I throw a punch."

A fist flew, but before it could connect satisfactorily with his attacker's skull-covered face, something seen drew the foreman's attention, and the fist stopped short of the target.

Suddenly, impossibly, flowing from the ground and slipping through the solid walls of the cave were the dark phantoms of hungry, angry alligators, snapping, hissing, growling, and lunging at him.

The foreman wanted to stay, to kick this fool out of their mine, to be the leader he was hired to be, but he was soon having trouble. He tried to make his mind rationalize what he was seeing, but the longer he stood there watching these ghostly predators approach, the more his brain told him to run...run from the cave in a screaming panic.

And so, he did just that.

Seeing the unlikely, and to some workers, the impossible, just occur, the miners took immediate issue with this man. As one, they all stopped working, and together, rushed at him, in vengeance of their boss.

"Ghosts of Gators Past, come to my aid. Your champion calls you!" the ragged man called to the ceiling of the cave.

Incredibly, the miners and wranglers began to slow and stopped their running, in confused groups. Their solidarity dying as fast as they feared _they_ would, when the workers, all of them, began seeing ghost gators crawling quickly towards them, jaws open for an eager and fatal crunch.

Some miners fell to the ground, apparently not quick enough to evade the otherworldly reptiles, and struggled in desperate, pitched battles with their invisible opponents.

Miner #2, rolling on the ground and dodging the jaws of his attacker, turned his head around at the proper moment to see their tormentor laughing loud and free at the chaos.

Focused, he managed to twist away from his ghost and got up, saw his friend, Miner #1 on his back, struggling, and ran to him.

He pulled #1 to his feet and ran with him towards the exit. From Miner #2's horrified brain, he had no other explanation for all of this, save one.

"It can't be!" he howled to his friend, in disbelief. "It really _is_ Pretre du Marais!"

The throng of miners and wranglers all swerved to avoid otherwise unseeable animals coming at them, but eventually, they all ran, pell-mell, for the daylight, in primal terror from these spirit saurians, the peals of cruel laughter following in their terrified wake.

"Tell your masters," Pretre du Marais crowed, his words echoing from the cave. "That the Age of the Gator has come!"

* * *

Winslow Fleach's decades-old, four-door sedan wound through the road outside of Crystal Cove that late Friday afternoon.

He was proud of the fact that his car's continued service through the years was made possible due to his good and steady stewardship. Other people would have bought another car as soon as the windshield wipers failed, but not him. Proper maintainance not only made him appreciate his car more, but it saved him money, in the long run. The spendthrifts of the world could take a lesson in that, he thought, as he made another turn on the road.

Marcie just looked out from the open front passenger window, thinking about who the mystery man was, as the pines of California went by.

It felt like the longest couple of weeks Marcie ever endured, waiting for an attack that she felt was sure to come. Looking over her shoulders in school, at work at the park, and even at home, on occasion, it was a stressful hell that she debated telling her father about. But in all of that time, nothing had happened. No letters, no clues, no strangers asking for directions, only to take her into a dark alley and end her days. Nothing.

So, she was more than willing to go on what looked like a short vacation with her father, if only to get out of town for the weekend.

"I'd like to think that I inherited my strong sense of work ethic from you, Dad," Marcie said, watching the scenery go by. "But only you would take one of the few times you'd actually go on vacation, and turn it into some sort of busman's holiday."

Winslow gave an bemused smile at that. "Ah, you say that now, but _Fleach's Folly Factory_ is going to be even more festive than ever when I learn how Gatorsburg plans its Pageant of Gators celebration. Think of it, Marcie. A night time carnival every night. We'll call it "Sundown Celebration." Lights, music, a small parade with beautiful floats going through the park. It's genius. Anybody can have roller-coasters, but how many parks will have a nightly carnival event like ours?"

Marcie gave a wan smile at his infectious determination. She realized long ago that their family's amusement park was, if anything, a work in progress for him. There was always something more to add or change to make it better, and once he knew that neighboring Gatorsburg was having its yearly celebration, Winslow knew he had to come.

"Well, it's ambitious, I'll give you that, Dad," Marcie said, supportively.

"Well, Marcie, it's like I always said," her father reminded her, which was often in her life. "If it's not ambitious, it's not worth doing. Don't worry, it'll be great."

* * *

No citizen living would have believed that their beloved Gatorsburg had once been a played-out husk, a land of dead mines and even more dead dreams, a sepulchral ghost town in another, more darker time.

Under a perpetually cloudy sky, fog-choked, dead tree-lined streets played solemn host to dark, useless, empty buildings that smelled of wet rust, peeling paint, the past, and hopelessness.

With the death of the Evil Entity, Gatorsburg had been transformed. A town that had long since rotted and carried the presence of death in its bones, was now vibrant and active again. Where lonely streets once meandered, people now bustled along its clean, hilly thoroughfares and cobblestone walks. Businesses that had once been decrepit and defunct, were now profitable, self-sufficient enterprises that catered to a satisfied public.

It wasn't too long afterwards that The Fleachs' sedan finished the three-mile drive to the town, drove past the billboard proclaiming "Welcome to Gatorsburg. Population: 30,000," and entered the town's city limits.

The sedan cruised through the avenue, allowing father and daughter to take in the local sights. Essentially, Gatorsburg's city plan was based on earlier maps that were, in fact, based on a local newspaper's humorous picture and article jabbing fun at the town's history in the 1800's, depicting a sleeping alligator, surrounded by some pine-covered mountains and wetlands, curled up in an almost spiral shape. Proud city planners took inspiration from the joke and created what would come to be the quarters of modern Gatorsburg.

At the moment, they were moving through the entrance of town, its oldest and outermost section, the _Tail Quarter_, marked by its Creole Townhouses and their Spanish moss-covered balconies, that shared their city blocks with other homes and business concerns.

Jutting out from the Tail Quarter was, like the illustrated gator's back right leg, was the poorer neighborhoods of the _Right Hind Quarter_, called simply, _Right Hind_, by the folks, therein, composed of its sprinkling of California Bungalow-style houses, tight, orderly blocks of even older Shotgun Houses, and the odd empty lot or two.

Angling out from the other side of the Tail Quarter, in the same orientation as the inward-pointing rear left leg, was the industrial neighborhoods of the _Left Hind Quarter_.

On what would be the gator's curving body was the _Middle Quarter_, holding the schools, small businesses and suburban residential blocks of Double-Gallery Houses and Creole Cottages that served the upper-middle and middle class citizens of town. Along the quarter's outer edge stood the wide highlands of cemeteries and the various mansions, some owned and some abandoned, that housed the town's old money.

The more affluent business center of town was the gator's broad head, and was, therefore, called the _Head Quarter_. It was said, with some jocularity and perhaps more than a little truth, that the businesspeople there, were like the typical alligator, the most aggressive, the most hungry for success.

"Blast it all," Winslow swore while he waited for his light to turn green, looking from one side of the street to the other. "We need a map to find the hotel we're staying in."

"We passed a gas station on the way over here," Marcie advised him. "Why don't we just turn back and get one there?"

"Good idea."

The light turned green and Winslow was about to take a side street to turn around and return to the fill-up station, when Marcie spoke up.

"Hold on, Dad. Let's pull into that restaurant, and I'll ask for directions. It's quicker," she said.

Her father looked to where she gestured and saw, on the corner of the side street, a retro-styled diner with the name "Gator Burger" proudly elevated on the roof in green neon. Lounging against the restaurant's exterior mascot, a smiling, cartoonishly-designed alligator, was a waitress, on break, sipping a soda.

"All right," Winslow said, pulling up to the curb in front of the eatery.

Marcie leaned her head out of the front passenger window and called out to the sipping waitress. "Excuse me, ma'am. We're trying to get to the Dancing Gator Hotel on 1 Hill Street. Do you know where that is?"

"Well, you're on Hill, now," the waitress pointed out in the town's local Southern drawl. "The hotel's way up the street, at the end."

The woman pointed in that direction. In the distance, the street, eventually, rose up the side of a tall hill, and sitting on its peak was a hotel, or what looked like one from Marcie's reckoning.

Marcie looked over at another Creole Townhouse that sat next door to the diner. Judging from the descending street numbers on the buildings next to Gator Burger, it appeared that the top of hill was the beginning of the street, as well as the inspiration for its name.

"Thank you," Marcie said to her, and soon the duo drove off.

The waitress heard them drive further and further away, and then said, dismissively, under her breath, "Tourists."

The Dancing Gator Hotel, formerly the Drowsy Gator, sat on the same hill that it had in its previous life. The surrounding dead trees that looked like black, skeletal hands rising from the property, were replaced by a quaint copse of magnolias that lined the ascending path towards the edifice.

From its geographic perch, the hotel gave commanding views of the bustling streets below, and its elevation afforded the patrons some peace and quiet from those same streets, behind the shelter of the flowering trees.

Driving past the lone Creole Cottage at the hill's base, the sedan gradually wound its way up the small, tree-lined path, until the grade finally leveled off, and they reached the small parking lot set off to the side of the hotel's flowered walkway.

Soon after, Winslow and his daughter disembarked from the car, each with a shoulder bag filled with, for him, toiletries, stationary, and a change of clothes, and for her, the same, except for the addition of a miniature chemistry set, and walked up to the front doors of the Victorian-style hotel.

The ringing bell over the opening doors signaled the front desk of Marcie and her father's arrival.

Dappled sunlight softly illuminated the foyer as Marcie and Winslow walked in. The lobby was wide, tastefully appointed in antique furniture, and beautifully gothic in its Victoriana. Even with its carved alligator heads on the newels of the winding staircase's banister and elsewhere, it still felt inviting, if a little odd. It felt to Marcie as though she was walking through an old hunting lodge.

The duo walked by the lounge and its fireplace, then approached the front desk, where a thin, pale man with dark hair obscuring one side of his angular face, met them with what looked like a predatory smile. On the lapel of his suit was a brilliant pin that proclaimed that his name was Gunther Gator, General Manager.

"Hello, there," Gunther greeted the two. "Welcome to the Danccing Gator Hotel. My name iss Gunther Gator. How may I help you?"

Marcie could swear there was something of a hiss in the back of his words.

Winslow shifted his overnight bag around on his shoulder to get more comfortable and told him, "Ah, yes. Winslow Fleach and my daughter, Marcie. I reserved a room last week for the Pageant of Gators festival."

Gunther went to the small desktop computer that sat off to the side of the main desk. After a short concerto of keystrokes, he soon found the needed confirmation.

"Ah, yess, Misster Fleach, we have you right here. Now, as you were given the ruless of the hotel when you made your reservation, men and women are to be given sseperate roomss, sso you have been given Room Sseven and your daughter will be given Room Eight. Will that be ssatisfactory for you?"

"Um, yes," Winslow said, trying to get used to Gunther's sibilant lisp.

"Will you need a bellboy to take your bagss?" Gunther offered.

"Oh, no, that's all right. We only came with these," Winslow said, showing him the strap of his shoulder bag. "But thanks, all the same."

Gunther brightened at that. "Not at all, and thank you for giving us your patronage, Misster Fleach, and pleasse, you and your daughter, enjoy your stay here at the Danccing Gator."

After receiving their room keys from the strange, yet pleasantly professional man, Marcie and Winslow walked up the winding stairs.

"You have to admit this isn't like you to just run off and leave the Factory like this," she said. "Way too spontaneous."

"I told you, Marcie, this is just research," Winslow said, with a twinge of anticipation.

"So, when this festival comes, I shouldn't have to worry about some Gatorsburg Jezebel spiriting you off into the night?" Marcie asked in jest, as they reached the third floor where their rooms were.

Stopping outside his room, Winslow, missing the joke, seriously considered such a scenario happening, then thought better of it. "Mmm...no, I don't think so. However, that shouldn't stop you from having a good time at the Pageant. I hear that they have a very comprehensive tour."

Marcie raised an eyebrow quizzically. It sounded like another typically frugal course of action from him. Which usually meant something particularly vexing for her. "Comprehensive or _inexpensive_, Dad."

"Now, Marcie," Winslow said, pedantically raising a finger to make his point. "Being thrifty is not a sin. There's no sense in spending money like tourists. That's what tourists are for. We can still enjoy the celebration in a practical and fiscally responsible manner."

"Perish the thought," said an approaching, well-dressed woman in a pinkish business suit, from down the hall.

A recreated Greta Gator, she was still the owner of the hotel, and was as plump and redheaded as she was in her previous life, but she had lost her wall-eyed stare and sour disposition, little things that, in the long run, helped to make her a more successful businesswoman.

"Our good town always does especially well, financially, when the Pageant kicks off," Greta explained. "Y'all _did_ come to town for the Pageant, I trust?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am," Winslow said. "Most definitely. I'm an amusement park owner and I'm here to learn how your town arranges this wonderful festival year after year."

Well, I don't like to brag, none," Greta shrugged proudly, "but we folks do like to party and the Pageant of Gators always promises to be the biggest hootenanny of the year. If you want to know how we put it all together, I suggest you get in touch with the Gatorsburg Chamber of Commerce. They'll see you right."

Winslow bowed in gratitude. "Thanks, I will."

Greta glanced over at Marcie. "Is this your little girl?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Greta waved away the formality. "Oh, we don't stand on ceremony around here. You're my guests. Call me Greta."

"Okay...Greta," Winslow complied. "Yes, this is my daughter, Marcie."

Greta leaned close to the girl, as if studying a new species. "Well, hi, there, Marcie," she said, gregariously. "You know, here in Gatorsburg, we got some of the finest restaurants you'll ever see. I guarantee they'll put some meat on those bones, yet, child."

_'Why does everyone think being thin is a bad thing?'_ Marcie thought. She suppressed a weary sigh and smiled graciously at the hotelier. "Thanks, ma'am." Then she added, innocently, just vex their host. "Although I have heard that alligator meat was considered very dry to eat."

"That's just propaganda from the Meat Council," Greta said, quick to defend the pride of her hometown before she said to the two of them, as a friendly reminder, "Anyway, I'm sure my son, Gunther, has already told you the rules. Men and women in separate rooms, oh, and no pets in the hotel."

"No problem," Marcie shrugged. "I'm not much of a pet person, anyway."

"That's fine," Greta said, satisfied. "Well, I won't keep y'all out here with all this jawin'. Remember, the Pageant starts tomorrow, so y'all get a good rest, and, as we say around here, "Eat the day!"

"Die Comedetis!" Marcie translated.

"What was that, hon?" Greta asked.

"Die Comedetis," Marcie attempted to explain. "It's Latin for "Eat the day." You see? Because it sounds like "Seize the day." Y'know, "Carpe Diem?"

Greta gave Marcie a deeply quizzical look that made the girl honestly wish she had kept her mouth shut.

"That's nice, dear," Greta condescended.

"Ugh, never mind," Marcie sulked to herself, as the hotelier shrugged and then left to go about her rounds.

Watching Greta descend the staircase, Marcie said to her father, "Y'know, I think I'll take you up on that tour idea, tomorrow. Besides, it'll give me a chance to think of what else I can do while I'm in town."

Winslow gave a thoughtful nod of approval. "Ah, multi-tasking while on vacation. You're truly a fragment separated from the previous cubicle."

_'__True,__'_ Marcie thought with an amused smirk, as she went into the room across from his. _'I guess I _am_ a chip off the old block.'_

"See ya later, Dad," she said.


	2. 2

_2~_

The Opening Parade of the Pageant. It was like waking up to an endless celebration after the long, dull dream of static life.

The crowds had assembled in downtown's St. Gator's Square in kaleidoscopic throngs earlier that morning and soon, under the direction of specific revelers carrying torches and beating drums, the countless party-goers would be led in a highly visible and merrymaking procession along the path of narrow lanes and past enthralled on-lookers.

With a roaring cheer and a flourish of drumrolls, the parade slowly, yet playfully, surged out. Paraders high-stepped, cakewalked, or simply strolled to conserve energy, in either full costume, or just face paint, and somewhere in the swelling, moving mass of party animals, delegates from other cities and artists also marched along with jovial gusto.

Zydeco and jazz could be heard joyously playing in the streets and the good-natured whoops and hollers could be heard just above that. Parades of dazzling dressed krewes and mummers, looking like human peacocks, marched past the entertained people, proud in attitude and gloriously gaudy in appearance.

Being so close to the square, the nearby hotels' patrons could hear the revelries from the highest balconies and the thickest walls of their sumptuous suites.

To strut their stuff at the very start of Pageant was beyond electric for the citizens, and was just the beginning. Three full days of civic merrymaking and intrigue, and nights of mysterious motives and romance were open to them, so they certainly didn't mind the odd, overexuberant jostle in the crowd.

The Pageant of Gators had returned to the world.

On the other side of town, the music was loud enough to be heard by Marcie and Winslow in the middle-rear seats of the upper level of the green, open-topped, double-decker tour bus with the gold filigree, that cruised along the historical routes that cut through one quarter, passed by another, and emerged into still another in a scenic, roundabout way.

Marcie's ears heard the male tour guide's recitation of Gatorsburg's origins and its eventual founding, but her attention kept drifting back to the music, so near and powerfully enticing. From her earlier studying of the bus's route, the closest it would get to the parade routes would be during a moment when both routes paralleled near the borders of Head Quarter and Middle Quarter. She hoped that would be soon.

Winslow, however, sat in rapt attention to not only the guide's speeches, but to the idea of having a similar feature brought back to serve his park in some fashion. He wondered why he hadn't thought of this years sooner.

"Isn't this fun, Marcie?" Winslow asked her.

"Hmm?" Marcie mumbled, still listening to the siren call of the Zydeco.

"The tour. Isn't it fun?" her father asked again.

Marcie, hearing the word "tour" and remembering his suggestion yesterday on taking one, snapped out of her daze. "Oh, yeah, Dad, it is, but I'd like to check out the Pageant while it's just starting up. That _is_ why we came here."

Winslow smiled parentally at her. "Oh, don't worry, Marcie. The celebration lasts for three days. You'll have plenty of time to party, but there's no sense in rushing things, now. Take you're time."

If it was anything else that Marcie wanted badly enough, she would have thought of someway to disobey such a statement, but a realization settled over her that he was absolutely right. She had time, so why blow through the vacation, simply because she was there? She had to admit that sometimes her youthful vigor could hinder things in her life, blind her eyes to better possibilities.

Marcie nodded at her father's wisdom, and said, "Okay." Then, she noticed that he was jotting things down in a notepad.

"Taking notes?" she asked him, conversationally.

Winslow brightened. "Taking great notes, in fact. Ideas are coming to me so easily, since I've been here, things I hadn't even considered before. Ha! Fleach's Folly Factory will be a masterpiece of family entertainment when I'm through."

Marcie smiled. "Glad to hear that. I guess travel _does_ broaden the mind, even if its only three miles from home. Well, I won't keep you. Scribble away."

Winslow nodded. "Very well, then."

Marcie went back to looking out at the Southern-style scenery of the historic neighborhoods. The bucolic old homes and mansions, and the stately cypress trees that stood guard over them. It was a quiet time capsule of the Deep South, transplanted by the earliest citizens from there, leaving to stake their claims in the west, but sheltered in the comforting cloaks of Southern traditions.

Marcie mused. These peaceful parts of town were proving to be just as enticing, in their own way, as the celebrations that honored it.

Then, she thought of something that brought a bittersweet smile to her. As appreciative as she was to have her father along, she suddenly wished Velma was here with her to enjoy this. But, she wasn't. She would have to settle for relating her little vacation to her online when she came back home.

"I can't wait to tell Velma about all of this," Marcie said to herself. Then, she said, as if making a promise to her long-gone friend, "I'm gonna have fun for the both of us, V."

Marcie glanced indifferently at the chattering tour guide, who worked from his position up front where a forward section of the roof remained to enclose that end of the upper deck's passage to and from the lower deck and entrance.

"As you may know," he said into his lavalliere, "Today is the start of the Pageant of Gators, our town's three day celebration honoring the humble and noble alligators that literally overnight created our fine Gatorsburg. The first Pageant started in 1903. Remembering how he loved Mardi Gras in his hometown of New Orleans, Salvatore A. Mander, the wealthy owner of Mander's Moccasins and Footwear, decided to open his new store and his new line of alligator skin boots with a parade down Main Street."

"The event was such a success," he continued, "That the city council decided to make it a yearly celebration, to give thanks to the bounty of alligators that created Gatorsburg, calling it the Pageant of Gators, which we still call, to this day."

Marcie had expected to hear more verbiage from the man, but the shocking boom of an explosion from the guide's direction woke her and the other passengers up from their collective ennui.

The blast shoved the tour guide to the floor and drove those in the seats near the passageway out of the green cloud bank, and back towards the others seated mid-way and rear of the upper deck.

Their flight instantly crowded the deck, as those ahead ran into those in the back, who didn't know what was going on, colliding and crushing the middle seaters.

Below, the bus driver had long since stopped the vehicle after the sound and the passengers of the lower deck were too confused and scared to move from their seats. However, above, in the loud, smokey confusion, a ragged-robed, skull-faced figure shuffled out of the green haze, cackling wildly at his mischief.

"Not afterwards, mes amis!" cried Pretre du Marais, as he slowly moved towards the back, herding the already frightened passengers into a tight, increasingly panicked mass. "Such empty praise for so a noble creature. Ze Pageant has been a sham and a mockery to the alligator since its corporate beginnings. I will put an end to the lie, by this Pageant's end. Mark my words, you thoughtless fools!"

Marcie, from her seat, was being pressed by Winslow, who was, himself, getting crushed against by the panicked people. She craned her neck up and around to try and see past the heads of the passengers, to get a look at who was doing this.

She finally managed to see the maniac clearly, just as Pretre du Marais ceased his stalking and lifted his staff, pointing it at the people with a flourish. "In ze meantime," he said. "Let ze Ghosts of Gators Past enlighten you." Then, he startled everyone by leaping over the side of the deck.

If anyone was curious as to where the shaman/priest went when he dived, however, they were quickly distracted by something far more attention-grabbing.

Coming from the sides of the bus, people could hear a growling hissing sound, and those who sat where the windows would be, looked over the sides, and were greeted by the horrific sights of alligators clawing and climbing upward against the lower deck's window frames, eager to get at the fleshy victims exposed on the open deck.

As the above passengers screamed in shock and horror, they also heard screams of terror rise suddenly, from the lower deck, as if a hole from Hell opened up from down there, releasing the wails of the damned, and adding them to their own.

The bus driver, still buckled in his seat, craned his head around in time to see the horror-stricken mass of passengers behind him surge with a herd mentality for the front doors.

He moved his hand over to his seat belt buckle, preparing to free himself and stand up to face the mob, to do his job and protect the riders in his care, but he couldn't even leave his seat in time before the wind was instantly crushed out of him, as he was pinned between the steering wheel and the fearful weight of desperate bodies.

His foot stumbled back onto the accelerator pedal and his hand flopped against the gear shift, setting the bus back to Drive, as questing arms and hands thrust past his unconscious body to find the switch on the dashboard that opened the main doors.

The bus lurched into motion, and Marcie felt a hand grip her arm like a steel band. It was her father, trying to get her away from her window seat, while at the same time, trying to push through the masses that choked the aisle, themselves trying to get from the sides of the bus and rush down the passageway.

"Come on, Marcie!" Winslow urged. "We have to get out of here before we're eaten alive!"

Marcie managed to glance over her side of the bus. Apparitions of alligators did appear, approaching her, and then, just as suddenly, they vanished, revealing the moving street and the approaching crest of a hill below.

She blinked her eyes clear for a moment and she didn't understand why she was seeing such a thing. Despite her blinking, the gators appeared once again, then faded away, once more. She blinked one more time, and this time, the gators didn't come back.

"Wait, Dad!" Marcie tried to tell him through the cacophony. "I-I don't think..."

Whatever Marcie was going to say next died in her throat at what she saw from her high vantage point.

Aided by the upper deck's height, she stood and leaned over the side, and could see, from beyond the approaching hill, the crowds and the Pageant's opening parade moving along the street that crossed the hill's base.

Her stomach felt like it bottomed out into her knees. Once the bus reached the hill, it would become a battering ram, it was as simple as that, and even if the spectators managed to get out of the way, in time, the floats, and everyone on them, would be sitting ducks.

_'__W__hy was the bus driver still driving?_' she thought, but there was no time for answers now, and no way to calm everybody and help get control of the situation.

Plus, it didn't help to see her father wrenched away from her side and disappear into the wave of bodies looking for escape.

"Mar-Marcie!" was all she could hear before he was gone.

"Dad! Dad!"

Ponderously, the bus was still in motion, closing in on the hill. People on board would die, and more would be added when it hit the parade, her brain screamed at her. If she was clear-headed enough to act, then she had to. As much as she hated to think it, her father had to wait.

Standing on her seat to get a clear view of the deck, Marcie could see people crammed into the shelter of the partially roofed forward section that opened to the stairway that led to the lower deck.

Reaching into her the inner pocket of her wool jacket, she grabbed a couple of Discourager capsules, aimed and threw them against the inner side of the side window of the shelter. The capsules broke, releasing their horrid, burning stink into the crowd, who reacted satisfactorily to Marcie, by scattering from the shelter and back to the open area of the upper deck for air.

With an opening made, Marcie made an apology to the passengers and began to ungainly walk, hop and leap on their heads and shoulders, getting clumsily closer to the shelter.

With angry, confused people in her wake, Marcie jumped down from the last passenger's shoulders and landed in the cleared aisle just before the shelter. Quickly, she ran down the winding staircase, and witnessed barely contained chaos.

Passengers were crammed where the driver sat, and, in fact, she couldn't even see him. Those that didn't have room to panic up front, crowded against the windows, beating against them and trying to claw them apart with sore, red hands.

_'What's going on up front,'_ she thought. _'Why was the driver still driving the bus?'_

"Hey! Bus driver! Hey, stop driving!" Marcie yelled, as she stumbled and tip-toed past the frightened humanity in the aisle.

She made it halfway across the bus, then reached into her jacket again, took out another pair of Discouragers and threw them over the heads of the people in her way. Cracking open against the ceiling, they rained noxious chemicals over the throng's heads and faces.

They wailed as they began to spread out and away from the driver's area and back towards the seating area.

Marcie fought her way through the subdued, returning passengers, like a salmon upstream, finally reaching the out-cold driver.

"Well, that explains things," she said, examining him.

Residual Discourager mist was starting to make her eyes smart and water, but by blinking, she could just see the hill's crest inching up towards them, from the bus's panoramic windshield.

Knowing that she didn't have time to unbuckle the driver before they went over the crest, Marcie pulled the man into an upright seated position, so she could have room to reach over and grab hold of the unfamiliar steering wheel.

"Okay, I've got steering," she nervously said to herself. "Gotta get control."

Risking not seeing anything outside of the bus, Marcie looked down into the dark space of the pedals and saw the driver's foot planted halfway on the accelerator. She managed to reach his foot with her own, and kick his away, but not before the bus finally rolled over the peak of the steep hill and coasted down.

People who knew that the bus was free-wheeling down the hill and building up more speed with every passing second, wailed anew, which didn't help Marcie's teary concentration in trying to steer this multi-ton beast.

Her outstretched foot tapped and fumbled uselessly for the brake in the dark well under the dashboard, going more by feel than sight, which was already hampered by the Discouragers.

Outside, the speeding bus was devouring yards by the second, and the distressing fact that as it built up speed, the kinetic energy released when it finally slammed into something, or several someones, would be devastating, was not loss on her.

She looked up from her pedal search and saw the parade closing in, and her heart jumped hard in her breast. They were too close. _Much_ too close.

She banged on the bus's horn, but she needn't have bothered. Patrons alerted by others across the street, had already looked from the entertainment and saw the killer bus rumbling straight towards them. They scattered from the foot of the hill, like athletes.

_'That t__a__k__es__ care of the spectators,' _she thought. _'But not the floats.'_

Her foot hit and finally found the brake, but she fought her impulse to use it fully. As a driver, she understood that she had to somehow turn away from the floats as she applied brake, to slow down this monster and save the paraders.

As someone who understood science, she knew she had to do all of that _carefully_, to defeat the massive momentum the bus had gained, or the bus would turn too sharply and flip over, certainly spilling and killing everyone on the upper deck, including her father.

Holding her breath and wrenching the steering wheel around fast, Marcie aimed the bus for the curb at the foot of the hill, to give herself the widest angle to maneuver with.

The bus bounced from hitting the curb, but had enough space to turn and roll parallel to a pink and white float sporting a large, proud-looking gator on top.

The paraders on the float, all girls, representing all-star students from Gatorsburg High, were caught off-guard by the bus's sudden appearance, and screamed at the near broadside, as Marcie fought to keep the wheel turning and forcing the bus away from the vehicle.

When the bus settled into its turn and slowed, not coming any closer to the float, Marcie put all her weight onto the brake, lurching the heavy vehicle to a blessed stop.

Marcie, experimentally, put the bus in Park, then turned around to face the passengers so she could judge their condition. All around the seating area, people were littered about the chairs and aisle, moaning and breathless from their fearful exertions, but they seemed quieter, more calm to her.

Policemen rushed over, frantically knocking on the front doors, and Marcie, finding the door controls, let them in. As they began to lead passengers out of the bus's lower deck, Marcie slalomed past them and ran back upstairs to the upper deck.

There, it was more off the same. Bodies recovering, yet cluttering the seating area of the upper deck, haphazardly.

"The police are here," Marcie called out to them. "Everybody go downstairs so they can take care of you."

Slowly, the people closest to her got up, walked unsteadily past, and descended the stairwell. Soon, the others behind them began to shamble past, and as the deck began to clear, Marcie could see Winslow seated on a window seat with his leg propped up across its aisle-side neighbor.

She jogged over to him. His glasses were askew, as were his clothes and hair, but she was thankful to Heaven that he was still alive.

"Are you all right, Dad?" she asked.

Winslow straightened his sitting to be more comfortable while speaking. "Oh, Marcie. Where were you? I thought the alligators had gotten you. I couldn't find you at all."

"I had to stop the bus," she told him,

"By yourself?" he asked, aghast.

"Yeah," she shrugged, ignoring his concern. Then, she looked down at his favored, extended leg. "What happened to your leg?"

"I sprained it in the aisle when everybody was trying to leave the bus. I'll be fine." Winslow said, then he looked around, bewildered. "Wh-Where are the alligators?"

Marcie took a seat across the aisle from Winslow's two. "I don't think there were any to begin with, Dad, but whoever that guy was, he's a menace," she said, quietly, taking a breather.

Marcie finally exited the bus, supporting her father under his arm and seeing the police cordon and the crowds that formed on the street, bringing the parade to an early, if temporary, stop.

She was about to wave a policeman over, when a gracefully aged, platinum blonde woman in a well-tailored suit walked through the police-barricaded crowds with an air of authority that suggested that there were few places she was barred from.

"Excuse me, but are you the one who stopped the bus?" the woman asked, as she approached father and daughter.

"Yes," Marcie answered her, wondering if she was a reporter.

"I want to thank you," the woman said, offering her hand. "My name is Priscilla Blanchard. When you stopped that bus from hitting the float, you saved my grand-daughter."

Marcie shifted her weight under Winslow, shook the soft, manicured hand, and digested the impact of her actions this day. "Wow! I didn't know, but I'm happy your grand-daughter is safe, ma'am. I'm glad _everyone's _safe, as a matter of fact, but you'll have to excuse me, ma'am. I have to get my father to a hospital. He was hurt."

"Please, allow me to repay you in kind. Let me take you father to the hospital," Blanchard offered, seeing the hobbled man.

Winslow quickly spoke up for himself after that exchange. "I don't need to go to a hospital, Marcie. I simply need to soak my ankle in hot water and Epsom salts, and then wrap it up. Hospitals are far too expensive."

Marcie was used to his fiscally conservative protestations, but she was unsure of his grousing when he was actually hurt and such frugality could cost him his health. "Are you sure, Dad?"

"Of course," he placated. "Just because you're incapacitated, it doesn't mean you can't save money."

Marcie sighed to herself. "Of course." Then, she returned her attention back to Blanchard. "Anyway, I'm glad I was able to save your grand-daughter, ma'am."

Blanchard slipped a hand into her jacket and produced a smooth white card, giving it to her. "Then, before I take my grand-daughter home, please, accept my card, and allow me to take you back to your hotel."

Marcie asked, suspiciously. "How do you know we're staying in a hotel?"

"Simple," Blanchard said to her. "The Pageant's here, tourists are everywhere, and you don't sound like you're from around here, anyway."

Marcie thought about that. She might not have been conscious of it, but she and her father were probably carrying on like the biggest tourist rubes in town. She shrugged and accepted the card. "Good point and thank you."

"You're welcome," Blanchard said, leading them from the cordon, and pleased to reciprocate the rescue. "My limo is on the other side of the street."

"Limo?" Marcie and Winslow asked in unison, as they followed her.


	3. 3

_3~_

Greenman sat in his tailored, silk robe on the deep green chair of his arboreal-themed office, at the moment, the living center of his naturalistic universe. He picked up the envelope that he had sealed just moments before from his broad, oaken desk, and mused.

"I believe it was one of this country's presidents who said it best," Greenman said to himself with contentment while he turned the envelope playfully in his fingers. ""We must never negotiate out of fear, but we must never fear to negotiate.""

He put the envelope back down on the desk and stood to watch the afternoon skies over Crystal Cove through his office's panoramic windows.

"Well, he was half right," he said with a slight smile of satisfaction.

* * *

Marcie left her hotel room and had seen Greta Gator just leave Winslow's, before she, herself, walked across the ornate corridor, opened the door to her father's bedroom, and peered inside.

From the doorway, she could see Winslow sitting up in bed, his bandaged foot elevated on pillows, and his bed covered with notes and a notepad or two.

"What's up?" Marcie asked with a smile of support, as she stepped in the room.

"Oh, just going my notes from today," he said, looking up from an interesting scripture. "Apart from my ankle getting twisted, I'd say things were coming along smoothly."

"I love your optimism, Dad, but what about your vacation?" Marcie asked. "You don't want to spend the rest of it in bed, do you?"

Winslow glanced at his daughter with a contented eye. "Oh, Marcie. You and I both know that this is all the vacation I need. Working on ways to improve our park. I'm never truly happy, otherwise."

"Well, you're preaching to the choir on that one," Marcie said.

"But, like I said earlier, it doesn't mean you can't have a good time while we're here," her father reasoned. "Go ahead, have fun at the Pageant. Who knows, you might just meet a nice boy while you're here."

"I doubt _that'll_ happen, Dad," Marcie said, quietly, looking a little uncomfortable, but she hid it away in a nervous chuckle, and changed the subject. "But I did see Mrs. Gator come out of your room before I came in. Is there something going on between _you two_?"

"Miss."

"Huh?" asked Marcie, thinking that Winslow said that because Marcie was incorrect.

"Miss," he said again. "_Miss_ Gator, not Mrs., not since her husband died in the mines, a long time ago. Dangerous work, from what she tells me. Anyway, ever since she found out about my injury, she's been very attentive to me, for some reason. Just between us and the notepads, I think she's falling for the old Fleach charm, but I don't know if I'll have time to deal with that and make my plans for the park's improvements."

Marcie smiled and shook her head. "Look, this might not come to anything, and I doubt she'll be changing her last name to Fleach, anytime soon, but c'mon, Dad, live a little. Have some fun. If Miss Gator is crushing on you, then, see where it goes. The park will always be there."

Now, it was Winslow's turn to smile and shake his head at his daughter. "Marcie, Marcie. You truly are your mother's daughter. Love is fast, fleeting, and fickle. There's no stability in it. Yes, you'll probably say that that's what makes it fun, but that's because you're young. When you get older, you'll discover that you need more stable things in your life. A career, a well-built house, a well-oiled business. Those things can't maintain themselves. Remember, the price of a solid fiscal quarter is eternal vigilance."

Marcie sighed inwardly at her own foolishness. These were the conversations they had in the past, and this was how it ended, always.

_'Why would I think or hope _that_ would change?'_ she thought, then, suddenly, she frowned to herself. _'Where did that come from? This is my _dad_. Everybody knows what a workaholic he is, but he's a good man. Co-workers, myself...'_

_'Mom...'_

Marcie gave a sigh to her father, as she walked back towards the doorway. "If you say so, Dad. Well, I'm going to go now. Good luck with what you find in those notes, and if you need me, just holler, okay?"

"Don't worry, Marcie," Winslow said, his attention becoming more drawn to the notes on his bed. "Miss Gator will probably have that taken care of. Have fun."

The door closed, between the two of them, it seemed to feel to Marcie, as she walked down the staircase.

"Okay, that's just stupid talk," she debated with herself on the way down. "He works hard for the family. Okay, granted, he can become a little..._obsessed_ with the park, but that's because it's his baby."

Marcie had reached the second floor, but the debate had yet to abate. "Okay, so, maybe it needs his constant, steady hand to keep it from sinking. If that's the case, I'm a big girl. I'll understand. But why am I still worried about it? Am I just acting needy? Being selfish?"

She stopped in thought for a moment. "Was Mom?"

By the time she reached the head of the stairs leading to the first floor, she had resigned herself, once again, to stop asking the same questions that haunted and demanded answers from her whenever she and Winslow had these talks.

So, as Marcie sat in the lobby's antique couch and stared at the fireplace, she focused on distracting herself with other questions, instead. Who was it that caused the events that hurt her father, and how could she get back at him, or, at least, stop him from hurting others?

She heard a sound from where the employees' entrance was, and saw Greta Gator carrying a small bowl of soup out. Marcie knew the hotel had staff that could bring that bowl to wherever it was desired, so she knew where it was going.

It was rare for her father to embarrass her, like this. No. She amended that. Her father had unwittingly embarrassed her before, mainly through his seemingly unshakable faith in saving money, either by cutting corners, or by just being unbelievably cheap.

Her _Hot Dog Water_ nome de plume was, of course, the pinnacle of that, she thought darkly.

But not this time. Now she felt embarrassed because of his workaholic lack of connection towards _others_, and not just to her, which she long expected. That, although Marcie would go to her grave saying that he was a good man, he might be obliviously taking advantage of Greta, if the notion of her doting on him was correct.

"Miss Gator," Marcie called out from the lobby. "I can get that to my father, if you're too busy."

Greta gave a smile. "Oh, that's alright, darlin'. I ain't too busy. Besides, it's been a long time since I had anyone else taste my home cookin', except my boy, Gunther, and my brother, Grady. He owns a gas station not too far from here."

Marcie studied her while Greta approached the staircase landing, but she believed there was nothing to figure out. This was a good woman, in the girl's mind. Perhaps _she_ could do what her mother...

Marcie sighed, banishing the dark thoughts of filial loneliness from her again. She focused once more on the attacker on the tour bus, and realized that she didn't know a thing about him, but he did have a mad-on for the Pageant, for some reason. Maybe that was a clue, in and of itself.

Local knowledge was needed, so she got up off the couch, and asked Greta, "Could I ask you a question?"

"Never hurts to ask," said Greta, as she ascended and Marcie followed.

"Do you know anything about a man who wears an alligator skull for a mask and old robe?"

Greta stopped walking in thought for a moment, then continued, saying, "The only person I know who wears somethin' like that is Pretre du Marais."

"Who's he? Sounds French."

"He was," Greta told her. "He's a local legend around here. Pretre du Marais means "Priest of the Swamp." No one knows what his real name was, but he got that name after what happened to him. Oh, I'd tell that story to Gunther all the time, so he'd go to bed. Like last week."

Below them and coming from the front desk, they heard the indignant cry of Gunther, who had overheard, yelling, "Mother!" Both females ignored it.

"What happened to him?" Marcie asked, keenly interested.

"Well, a long time ago, when Gatorsburg was smaller and just starting out as a mining town, it was wild and woolly, as most towns were back then. A French Catholic priest was passing through and tried to give the miners a bit of the Good Word. Well, he got run out of town for his troubles.

Now, he didn't know the lay of the land, and he got himself lost in what are now our Source Swamps, and I can tell you, the critters there had a hankerin' for human flesh, somethin' awful, but for some reason, he didn't become gator chow. In fact, the Good Lord must've been smiling on him, because he survived in there for so long that he became one with the swamp, and soon, became its protector.

But something changed in him. He became as cold as the gators he lived with, and he proved it one night by returning to town with a few of those gators, and settling the score with the miners who ran him out. After that, he went back into the swamp, his name, forgotten, but his legend was talked about all over town. A dangerous guardian of the wetlands, known as Pretre du Marais. The Priest of the Swamp."

"Wow," Marcie managed to say, swept away by such a tale, and surprised that they made it to the third floor so soon.

"Why do you ask?" Greta asked her, coming up to Winslow's door.

"Because I think I just seen him today attacking a tour bus," said Marcie. "He's the reason my dad's laid up, right now."

Greta gave an disbelieving chuckle. "Well, I doubt that. The Priest doesn't exist. He's just a fairy tale to put naughty boys to sleep."

"Mother!" came Gunther's distant, sibilant voice again. Again, it was ignored.

Greta opened the door with her master key, telling the girl, "Anywho, all your father needs is some good ol' fashioned Western Southern Hospitality, and he'll be right as rain."

She was about to step in, when Marcie touched her arm to stop her.

"Greta, I know my father," she told her. "It might not look like he's showing it, but he really appreciates what you're doing. Thank you for looking after him."

Greta gave a warm smile to her. "Oh, you don't have to apologize for him, darlin'. I've seen my share of workin' men before. Heck, I was raised by one and married to another. I know their type and I know that they need a strong woman to look after them. Who knows, maybe one day, you'll be a strong woman to someone who needs one the most."

Greta walked into the room and left Marcie in the hall with her thoughts.

"Maybe," Marcie said to herself, wondering. Then, she went into her room.

She looked over at the bed, and decided that she had never seen anything so inviting. She was worn out from the day's events and needed to exorcise the insecurities that vexed her.

Marcie fell into the bed with a backwards flop, luxuriating in sinking into the mattress before it sprung back into shape. From the corner of her eye, she saw something white flutter up from her bounce and then flutter back down to the floor.

She leaned over the bed to pick up what it was. It was the business card that Priscilla Blanchard had given her. On the face of it was blue embossed lettering that read "Blanchard Mines. Priscilla Blanchard-President." Below that, was a telephone number.

Out of curiosity, Marcie turned the card over, and, handwritten in ink, was another phone number. That piqued her interest.

She got up and went over to the telephone that sat on the night stand, took a deep breath to ready herself for whatever she was, no doubt, going to get into, and dialed.


	4. 4

_4~_

_'Man, the lab I could buy with _that_ kind of money,'_ Marcie thought, as she walked through the opulent living room of the mansion that sat among the other mansions in the stately Middle Quarter of town, led by the impeccably dressed and preternaturally poised butler.

The power of this family's old money was almost tangible around her, silken, and at the same time, full of irresistible influence, like a harnessed hurricane, capable of manifesting any admitted desire or directing any worldly action.

It could be felt in the delicate, crystal chandeliers and well-preserved oak furniture, in the maintained tapestries and one-of-a-kind Persian carpeting, and in the parlor rooms, where the schemes and excesses of the ghosts of by-gone, familial captains of industry could still be felt, long after their time.

The butler escorted Marcie through the patio at the rear, and out into the green ocean of a manicured and landscaped backyard that sprawled out from the imposing presence of Priscilla Blanchard's mansion.

Exposed to the open sunshine, Marcie could see her host sitting in the ivy-laced, gleaming white gazebo waiting for the teen's arrival, a financial newspaper in one hand and sipping sweet iced tea with the other.

Seated at the same table were four other people, quietly conversing with her. Priscilla lifted her head smoothly, looked out from her vast yard, and spied Marcie and her manservant on the approach.

She signaled her invitation with a light wave of her hand. "Ah! Marcie, you're here. Good."

Marcie nodded to her host, as the butler returned to the house. "Hello again, Miss Blanchard. How are you?"

"Fine, fine," she said, pleasantly gesturing to the others. "Allow me introduce you to my son, Richard Blanchard, who runs the day-to-day operations of my company. Mr. George, one of my company's staff geologists. And Mr. Wharton and Miss McAfee. They're here from the Government Environmental Agency, investigating this recent rash of mining attacks, here in town."

Richard, a thick-built man sporting a carefully groomed handlebar mustache, stood up and offered his hand to Marcie.

"So, you're the one who saved my daughter? Thank you. Thank you, very, very much," he told her sincerely, shaking and easily obscuring her slender hand in between his two massive ones. "I don't know what I'd do if she were lost to me."

Marcie gave a bashful smile. It wasn't everyday that someone thanked her for saving a life. "It was my pleasure, Mr. Blanchard."

Then, she looked over towards the GEA team, saying, "I didn't know the GEA also looked into mining accidents, too. I thought you guys only dealt with, y'know, the environment."

Richard looked back at the government workers, his face went dark with disapproval. "My thoughts, exactly," he said. "This is a matter for the police, or at the very least, someone from that part of the government who handles this sort of thing."

Mr. Wharton, a tall, thin, tow-headed man, gave a sympathetic shrug. "Normally, they would send someone from there, but, as you know, Mr. Blanchard, these aren't your average mines."

Miss McAfee, an African-American woman, with a professional air, chimed in. "True enough. Because of the tunnel networks, all of the mines are as much part of the alligators' local habitat as the Source Swamps, and _that_ makes it environmental, Mr. Blanchard."

Richard rolled his eyes and scoffed. "If you say so." Then, he reached down under the table and favored his leg. "Ah! My arthritic knee's acting up again. Must be getting ready to rain soon."

Marcie, watching this little drama play out, suddenly began to wonder, not only, how she could offer to help them, but even if she _should_.

"Excuse me," she interjected, politely. "But does any of this have to do with Pretre du Marais?"

Marcie had to admit that she didn't expect the explosion of laughter that fired out of Richard, at the mentioning of that name.

"Him?" Richard guffawed. "That fairy tale? Ha! I've read the foreman's reports on some crackpot dressed as him, scaring the workers, and disrupting our business. Trust me, it's not some supernatural eco-terrorist, it's just a crank in a mask thinking it's a hoot to do this nonsense during the Pageant. That's why I say that it's a matter for law enforcement, not hippies on the government payroll. No offense."

"None taken, Mr. Blanchard," McAfee said, smoothly. "But do keep in mind that if anything is out of the ordinary in your company's mines, we hippies do have the power to shut you down."

Richard, caught off-guard from the threat, sputtered angrily, "You wouldn't!"

"We would," Wharton chimed in. "No offense."

Richard steeled himself and stared hard at his challengers. _'Anti-capitalists__,__ to a man,'_ he thought. _'I dealt with your kind before.'_

"Go and look all you want," he told them with a dismissive wave. "Have a nice picnic lunch in those caves, for all I care. You'll not find one thing that's out of sorts there that wasn't caused by that masked idiot. Mother, tell them!"

Priscilla Blanchard raised her hand for peace. "Son, these people are here because the problem posed by Pretre du Marais doesn't just affect us, but all of the other companies' mines and businesses, as well."

"Then let our competition deal with him, too," Richard reasoned. "Why are we the only ones giving a hot hoot about him?"

"Because," she explained. "The other companies are already pointing fingers at one another and us, thinking that one of us is breaking Article One of the agreement."

"Nonsense," Richard snorted.

Marcie raised her hand to interject again. "Forgive me for sounding like a noob, but what's going on?"

Blanchard regarded the girl and apologized. "I'm sorry, Marcie. I've been a terrible host. We've just been at odds with all of these attacks and we're just trying to find an effective solution to them."

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about, Miss Blanchard," Marcie said. "I think I figured out a way you can pay me back for saving your granddaughter."

Blanchard raised a gray, razor-thin eyebrow. "Oh? How?"

"By letting me help you solve this mystery before I have to leave in three days," Marcie explained. "The Pageant's the only reason my dad and me are here. When it's over, we're going back home."

Everyone else was silent as Priscilla sat still in deep thought. Then, with calm deliberation, she asked, "Say I decide to say yes to this...rather strange request. What's in it for you?"

Marcie's face hardened slightly. "That so-called urban legend hurt my dad. I guess that would be enough for me, but I like to multi-task. I want to help you make sure that this guy doesn't hurt anybody else, either."

Richard looked thoughtful, as well, to Marcie's reasoning. He liked people with drive, but was she biting off more than she could chew?

"Well, that's nice of you to volunteer, Marcie, is it?" he offered. "But it's way too dangerous. Besides, what have you got to bring to the party, anyway?"

Marcie was quick to answer. "I've helped my sheriff solve a string of mysteries in my hometown of Crystal Cove," she said, omitting, with a rather sheepish feeling inside, the fact that that selfsame sheriff had thrown her in the pokey almost as many times for interference. "I'm also a halfway decent chemist, so I figure one more brain on the team wouldn't hurt."

Priscilla asked, cautiously, "Is your father okay with what you're doing?"

"Oh, c'mon, it's not like I'm risking my life solving mysteries because I'm trying to work through my depression over the fact that I miss my girlfriend, who left home for some unexplained reason," she said with a nervous chuckle, then realized, from the staring, perplexed faces, her faux pas.

"Oh, yeah, he's totally on board with it," she lied.

"All right, then," Priscilla said, apparently satisfied with the situation. "How much do you know about out town's economy?"

"I read up on it before coming here," Marcie said. "Essentially, it's a huge gator-based economy, the largest in the United States, with smaller businesses that support it, along with the usual businesses a town would have."

Richard nodded. "That's correct. The various alligator-based food, clothing, and luggage companies own specific mines which connect directly to the protected Source Swamps. By law, they nor any private citizen is allowed to interfere or interact with those swamps unless they're agents of the GEA."

"And, naturally," his mother added. "Alligator mining is not without _its_ risks. Gator miners have to deal with the gators as they come out of the cave's underground lakes, and that means luring them out with pheromones and baited traps.

From a corporate perspective, the risks come from the fact that although the individual companies may own the mines, they can't tell how many gators will use a particular mines' tunnel network before they're caught and harvested. One mine might become a honey hole one day, and then, bone dry, the next. It's a gamble that every CEO has learned to get used to and factor into their fiscal calculations.

It also bears mentioning that influencing gator output, by any means, is a strict violation of Article One of the Alligator Free Market Agreement, of which every company, including my own, is a signatory."

"And that's why I can't believe that the other companies would stoop to thinking that we would break Article One of the agreement," Richard huffed. "We've been on the level since the signing. Humph! Someone must be losing money hand over fist to try and pull a power grab like this."

"If it _is_ a power grab," said Priscilla. "Then they'll gain nothing in the attempt, because _we're_ losing money just as fast as they are, unless we can find this saboteur and expose him."

She stood up and said to the assembly with practiced finality, "Very well, people. We are know what we have to do." She looked towards the teenager. "Marcie, we'll all get you up to speed, and then we'll see about saving my company."

Then, she added, as a last minute postscript. "Oh, and the town, too. "

* * *

The bouncing jeep had finally stopped at the mouth of the cave, and for the fifth time since she left town, Marcie had to adjust her hard hat on her head.

Although the various mines' owners had offices in the Head Quarter downtown, she wished that she was back in town for the partying. However, the mines were just outside of Gatorsburg proper, and she had to remind herself that she _had_ volunteered.

"When we get into the cave, walk single-file behind me, and follow the rail car tracks," said George. "It'll be safer."

"All right."

They both disembarked and walked towards the natural maw of the mountain, and because this was her first time doing this, Marcie couldn't help but feel like some later-day Orpheus, as they descended into the depths.

"I've been going over the foreman's incident reports that Mr. Blanchard gave me," Marcie told him. "According to them, Pretre du Marais has been harassing not only your company's miners, but the other companies' miners, too, for about three weeks now. The only real question is why."

"It could be corporate espionage," George suggested.

Marcie shrugged. "It could be. Maybe there's a new company in town, attacking all of the mines because its president didn't sign that agreement of yours."

"Maybe, but we can, at least, look for some clues in the last mine that kook went into," the geologist said.

At once, Marcie gave him a skeptical look. "Yeah, about these mines, Mr. George. I read about them, and I'm sorry, but I find it very hard to believe that you're actually pulling alligators out of caves like they're iron ore, or something. Alligators aren't known for their subterranean _habitats!_"

George heard Marcie's outburst and turned around in time to see her almost fall to the side. She braced herself against the natural rock wall, catching her breath.

"Are you okay?" he asked, reaching over and helping her back up.

"I guess...I slipped."

"You gotta be careful in these caves," he advised. "The rocks are slippery here."

"Gotcha," Marcie sighed, then continued to follow him deeper into the cave at a more cautious pace.

"Anyway," George continued. "What if I told you that we _are_ pulling them straight out of the caves. In a manner of speaking."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, we're here at the foot of the local mountain range and the surrounding hills," he said. "In these areas are all the mines that are owned by Big Gator."

"Big Gator?" Marcie asked. "You mean, like "Big Oil?"

George chuckled. "That's the name we use to describe the town's largest, publicly-owned, gator-based companies. Anyway, behind the mountains there's this huge system of wetlands. We call those the Source Swamps."

"Source Swamps?"

George nodded. "That's where all the alligators come from."

"I thought they came from the mines," Marcie said.

"They do," George explained, as they saw, up ahead, the faint lights of the lakes and processing cavern. "See, the land on which Gatorsburg is built is geologically active. Thousands of years ago, that activity created underground and underwater tunnel systems between the Source Swamps and the mountains and hills. Due to overpopulation, the alligators have been using these tunnels for years, as a kind of highway, to get from the swamps to the caves in the mountains to look for food.

When miners in the 1800's explored the caves and saw the high numbers of gators that emerged to and from the caves' lakes, they came to realize that they would do whole lot better as trappers. And because so many alligators could be brought out of the caves, consistently, the miners jokingly called the caves "alligator mines," and the name just stuck."

Entering the chamber with the geologist, Marcie nodded in understanding. "Ah. Food for thought."

"Well, if we don't want to end up food for _gators_, we better watch our step here. Pretre du Marais attacked around this area, so there may be some clues to find here."

Marcie looked around the area, marveling at the industry wrought from this dank place. It was dim, but still visibly accommodating, from the spotty lighting given off by those mounted lamps that weren't inexplicably damaged by the criminal priest during his recent mayhem.

Except for the empty rail car sitting on its tracks, it was almost reminiscent of a fish processing plant, a no-nonsense prep station set up right next to the water. But now it was eerily deserted. Large, soiled tables stood with their unused rolls of strong, water-proof electrical tape, and abandoned rubber gloves, hard hats, hand tools, and nets littered the ground. Then, she noticed the fence that spanned the circumference of the small lake.

"The fence keeps the alligators in the lake, I assume," Marcie postulated, or rather, hoped.

"Yep. The only way, in or out, for us or the gators, is the gate," George said, pointing to the gate nearby. "Security locked it and the other lake gates, so we'll be fine."

Then, both turned their heads to the sound of someone calling from back towards civilization.

"George! George!" the voice echoed. "Come here for a second!"

"I think it's the foreman," said George. "I'll see what he wants. You keep looking around and I'll join you when I get back."

George turned about and hiked back up the pathway towards the cave's entrance, as Marcie watched him go. Then, she turned on the light in her hard hat, to improve visibility, and went about inspecting the area.

Taking out her magnifying lens from her jacket, Marcie gave the tables, gloves and the interior of the rail car a thorough looking over, but apart from their haphazard abandonment, nothing seemed amiss to her.

If Pretre du Marais was here recently, then there had to be something left behind. It would have been particularly frustrating if there was nothing to show for her efforts, thus far.

"Wait a minute," she reasoned aloud, remembering how that wayward priest attacked earlier. "Me, Dad, and the passengers were fine before that creep showed up on our tour bus. Then, there was all of that smoke...and everybody panicked. I know I saw an alligator climbing up the side of the bus for a minute. If that's what everyone else saw, too, then maybe we're dealing with illusions. That green smoke...might have been an hallucinogen."

With that, she felt it was time to change tactics. Reaching into her jacket pocket again, she produced a small plastic bag and a tongue depressor. She knelt down on the wet ground, took a few tiny scoops of mud from the area with the depressor, and smeared it into the bag.

Marcie admitted to herself that this was a gamble, to be sure. Moisture from the chamber might have affected the terrain in some deleterious way that would have made whatever clues she sought in the mud difficult or even impossible to detect, but it was a workable theory, one that she wasn't afraid to disprove, if it came to that.

A trail of small bubbles danced on the fenced-in lake behind her. Questing nostrils broke the surface of the water with a practiced silence that took millions of years to master.

The scent was unmistakable. With a smooth surge of power, it cruised, unseen and unheard, up to the bank of the lake.

"Maybe this guy is a chemist, like me," Marcie mused, putting a mud sample into another baggie.

The gate quietly swung open with an experimental nudge of its snout, a snout that homed in on the delicious, primal aroma that came from the kneeling human prey with her back to the killer.

Adrenaline sang in the gator's veins as he stalked the meal, carefully closing the distance until it was ready to rush across space to bring her down with bone-crushing jaws.

_Six feet..._

_Four feet..._

Marcie's head curiously swiveled upon catching the sound of an all-too eager hunter giving a triumphant, if premature, growl-hiss in celebration of the kill.

From the corner of her eye, Marcie saw the charging alligator lunge, open-mouthed and full bore, on her.

A screech flew from her throat, and with her heart bouncing fearfully in her chest, she leaped ahead and tore into a sprint, keeping her eyes fixed on the gator to judge how close it was to her, since she was, now, well aware, of how close it was to overtaking her.

However, so focused was she on the gator, Marcie didn't look ahead of her and tripped badly on the rail car tracks with a yelp, falling hard a few feet from the hunting reptile.

With a desperate reflex that surprised her, she rolled away, hard, to the side, the jaws just missing her by half a foot.

After a few seconds of rolling, Marcie stopped to see how far she was from the gator. She was couple of yards from the crocodilian, as the predator stopped, realized it missed, and swung its powerful head around, locking its snout onto Marcie's direction.

Hissing in frustration, it charged again, feet clawing into the living rock to propel it into a ravenous fury. From her prone form, Marcie knew that she didn't have time to stand and run before the animal would literally cut her off at the knees with a crippling bite.

"Keep away from me!" she screamed at it, not caring whether it understood English or not. "Mr. George! Mr. George! Help!" She prayed that she didn't lose her balance or her arm strength while she backed away as fast as she could.

For one desperate second, Marcie thought about stopping her crawl, momentarily, and quickly reaching into her jacket for one of her capsules, preferably a Discourager, or even an Insta-Ice, considering what it could do to a cold-blooded beast like this one. But upon pragmatic reflection, she knew that if she didn't have time to stand, she had even less to fumble into pockets, find the right capsule, and throw it accurately before violent death took her.

With terrified eyes, the teen looked around for an alternative, seeking a ready weapon to fight off the closing alligator. She saw one of the discarded hand tools, a shovel, lying blessedly close to her, and knew that she didn't have a moment to waste.

Reaching out, she grabbed the end of the wooden handle of the tool and flung the shovel, end-over-end, at the deadly, open mouth.

The tool spun in, slamming into the jaws' hair-trigger hinges, sideways, causing the gator to reflexively snap them shut against the handle.

As the gator shook its head and tried to work the shovel out of its maw, Marcie used the time to scramble to her feet and scurry up the curving, stony path towards sunlight and safety.

Whereupon, she collided with a hurrying George coming from the cave's entrance with a security detail.

"Marcie! What happened?" George asked, frantically. "I heard you screaming, so I came with security. What's going on?"

"Down there! _Alligator_...loose! The lake! It almost ripped me to pieces!" Marcie frantically sputtered. Then, she grabbed two handfuls of George's shirt in a rage and yelled in his face, "I thought you told me that those gates were locked!"

"They were," one of the two security guards who followed Mr. George said, almost defensively. "I don't know how they were _unlocked_. Did _you_ unlock them?"

Marcie didn't know what stunned her more, the near-death experience, or the stupidity of the guard's accusation. "You know what? I did!" she quipped in annoyance. "My day's just not complete, until I'm eaten by a wild animal! Are you related to Sheriff Bronson Stone, by any chance?"

"Never mind them, Marcie," George told her. "Are you okay?"

Marcie took a cleansing breath to try and ease away the shakes. "Yeah, thanks. Look, I took some mud samples from down there. I'm going to take them back to my hotel and do an analysis on them, to test a theory I have. Maybe there's something in it that'll shed some light on all of this."

"Well, I don't see any gators here," George said, peering into the dimness ahead. "I guess that's a good thing. C'mon, let me get you out of here."

He then turned to the two guards. "You two better get in touch with Mr. Blanchard about what happened here, and then get some wranglers down here to check for any "loose product" by the lakes."

"Yes, sir," said the other guard. Then, the pair marched back towards the entrance, followed closely by Marcie and George.

"I saw alligators coming at me, once before, today, on the tour bus. But there was nothing there. They were all illusions," Marcie admitted to the staff geologist. "If I'm still seeing things, then my fact-finding is questionable, at best. I'm not sure I can tell Mr. Blanchard anything. He probably wouldn't believe me if I did, and, to be honest, I don't think I would, either."

Marcie grimly thought back to the alligator that was, by now, hungrily roaming the dark depths of the mine. She hoped the mine workers would be able to deal with it, as she shivered from her close call. However, she couldn't help wondering if what she saw was actually real, in retrospect. It certainly looked real enough for her not to want to go back and verify the reptile's authenticity.

But if her clarity _was_ in doubt, then she dearly needed to start on her analysis, at once. If her theory proved correct, and she _did_ fall prey to some hallucinogenic mist, on the tour bus, and maybe its residue, in the cave, then it would go a long way in explaining whether she was actually seeing phantom alligators or not, and how Pretre du Marais was able to terrorize whole mines and a tour bus so easily.

George shrugged, sympathetically, as they all exited the mouth of the cave. "Well, if you need me to vouch for you, I will, but, for right now, let's just get the heck out of here."

"You don't have to tell me twice," said Marcie, thankful to see daylight.

She was soon thankful for the daylight in another way. When she lifted one of her hands to see how much it trembled, it allowed her to see a wide smudge of white on her palm, as if she touched moist paint.

She didn't remember anything white in the cave, or holding on to anything painted, but she decided to keep it to herself, in any event.

There was no sense in bringing it up, if it was trivially caused, she reasoned. And with all the excitement of late, it was quite possible that she could have done anything to get that.


End file.
